


From a Dark Corner

by novanglus



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Ba Sing Se, Book 2: Earth (Avatar), Fluff, Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:47:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27458977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novanglus/pseuds/novanglus
Summary: Stuck in Ba Sing Se, Zuko counts his existence by shifts of work at the teashop and off days to waste.  Time has lost its meaning.  However, he soon realizes this does not hold true for his uncle, who can never escape its passage.
Relationships: Iroh & Lu Ten, Iroh & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 49





	From a Dark Corner

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Irko Week. I have a weakness for soft but prickly Zuko. Set between Tales of Ba Sing Se and Lake Laogai episodes in Book 2.

When he first arrived in the city, Zuko had experienced something akin to panic as he and his uncle settled into the small confines of their apartment, enclosed within the lower ring.As large and grand as Ba Sing Se was, the place was a prison, with families crammed into tall buildings with tiny rooms and walls that divided and locked away.He was forced to adjust to many things: the constant rush, the lack of open space, the sheer number (and noise) of people.A thousand lamps kept the night sky perpetually lit and the smoke of countless hearths covered the city in a haze throughout the day.

Now, standing in their two-room apartment, Zuko looked from the window into the courtyard below, with its single well to serve the entire tenement block.He watched as another family arrived, shuffling along with their bundled possessions, exhaustion lined on their faces.He assumed they were more refugees, to judge by their travel-worn clothing and hollow cheeks.

They were herded here like cattle-pigs into a pen, he thought.Just like he and Uncle. Refugees continued to pour into the city with each passing day, crowding the Lower Ring further.The swelling migrant populace left tension amongst the city-born residents who held them in weary contempt, Zuko was quick to observe.

Behind him, Zuko heard his uncle give a pleased sigh, startling him out of his thoughts.Iroh had busied himself earlier with trimming flowers and now sat back, surrounded by stray petals and cut stems.“That should liven this place up a bit.What do you think Prince Zuko?”

The old man held up a vase he had purchased recently, now adorned with a bright floral spray.His uncle was a man of many talents, including apparently flower-arranging, and had taken to festooning their apartment with plants.And from the expectant look in his eyes, the old man was hoping for serious feedback on his latest project. Zuko noted, “It looks…uh, nice?”

A smile appeared in response.“Thank you.I am quite pleased with how this arrangement turned out.”Iroh rose from the low table, and placed his handiwork beside the couch on the empty side-table.“And what were you studying outside so intently?”

Leaving no time for a reply, Iroh came up behind Zuko’s shoulder, gently nudginghis nephew to look out the window.The family below, two parents and three kids in cheap brown robes, had stopped at the well for a respite.“Looks like we have new neighbors.”

“When don’t we?This place is packed with refugees.I don’t like being contained here, Uncle.”

“We are not contained, as you put it, Zuko.This city offers us and those refugees below safety from the Fire Nation and the war.Or would you rather us be wandering again, beset by bounty hunters?”

And Azula--was the implied reminder. Zuko gave no answer but turned away abruptly and headed for the chipped entry door.As he searched for the shopping basket, he said, “I’m headed to the market. You mentioned rice, radish and tofu.Is there anything else you needed?”

Irohhad turned away from the window, reaching for a broom and began to sweep the debris of his labors.“Yes, I made a list yesterday.On a piece of scrap paper.It’s somewhere in my jacket, the left pocket I think—it’s hanging in the bedroom.You’ll find my coin pouch there too.Go ahead and grab what you need.”

Inwardly, Zuko groaned.While Iroh was a tidy man, he had a habit of collecting…well, junk.From sea shells to antique teapots, his uncle was capable of amassing a small fortune of keepsakes as he called them.The only benefit of their fugitive status was that they had no extra money to spare on useless kick-knacks.And still even now, their small income hadn’t fallen to Iroh’s compulsive shopping habits too terribly. 

He had only managed to fill up their flat with necessities and just a touch of personal flair like the vase, the painted scroll on the wall, the ornate paper and wood lantern in the bedroom corner. 

So as Zuko dipped into the pockets of Iroh’s jacket, he was unsurprised to find them stuffed with a handful of items: loose change and a neatly folded paper frog, a spare button and a half-eaten cookie, his travel pass and sheets of scrap paper.Zuko cursed when a scattering of tea leaves fell to the floor as he rifled through these to find they were mostly recipes Iroh had scratched out on old news leaflets.He had seen his uncle at the teashop, chatting with middle-aged women and swapping kitchen secrets for marital status.Zuko lived in constant fear that one day his uncle would bring home his own “lady friend.”

The list was no where to be found. 

Zuko patted down the tunic, hearing the tell-tale jangle of coins in an inner pocket near the shoulder.Blindly, he felt the uneven curves of the coin-purse, and the sharp corners of thicker parchment—hopefully, the damned list.

A false hem covered the buttoned pocket, which Zuko growled at before managing to fish out the coin-pouch and the paper.He unfolded the large parchment and found himself blankly staring at the benign, slightly faded features of his dead cousin Lu Ten.The document was old, a bit frayed at the edges, but had been mended where ink had faded in the crevice of folded corners.Zuko’s throat ran dry suddenly and his chest ached for breath.

Why would his uncle blatantly carry this—and how did he even have it on him?Zuko had thought the majority of their possessions blown up with the ship but clearly this survived somehow.

He held the portrait for a moment, reading the message by Lu Ten’s hand—he had recieved letters from his cousin, dozens of them, covered in that neat hand so like his father’s, now gone.And perhaps this had been the last thing Lu Ten had ever writtten: _To General Iroh, I will return with victory._

Only he hadn’t.His cousin had died isntead and Zuko’s life had tilted with it—Uncle’s too.

“Did you find that list?” Iroh inquired from the common room.

Panic overtook him and Zuko hastily searched the coin-pouch, finding a crumbled list of grocery items Iroh had composed.

There was a creak on the floor and a grumble from his uncle—Zuko had paused to long to answer.“Found it!”

He stuffed the coin-pouch and list into his tunic before carefully returning Lu Ten’s portrait back to its hiding place.He quickly burst into the common room, grabbed the shopping basket from its place on the shelf and slammed the door behind him without a backward glance.

He rushed from the apartment block, his need to get away was overwhelming—like a physical ache—and he hurried to put distance between him and its confining walls and his uncle.His uncle who had taken to existence here with an easy acceptance Zuko couldn’t understand. 

His uncle, the Dragon of the West, who had once, what seemed ages ago and in a different world, besieged this city as a general.The city where his only son had perished.

As Zuko came nearer towards the crowded merchant quarter, he pushed aside his scattered thoughts to focus on the frenetic maze.It was mid-afternoon and most of the non-working populace—women, children, and the elderly—would be out in full force.Zuko reached for the grocery list, committing the items, which included vegetables and a splurge of duck, to memory, or as much he could. 

He gradually moved through the stalls, stopping by their favored grocers first. Or rather, Uncle’s favorites but Zuko’s mind wasn’t focused on the task.He kept drifting to the image of his cousin, comparing the portrait to his own memory of Lu Ten near the date of his depature to the seige at eighteen.He had been twenty when he died and, from the portrait in Iroh’s pocket, he had grown more into his features than Zuko remembered.The square jaw and nose, the hooded eyes resembled Iroh unmistakably.But his cousin’s ringing laughter—almost a breathless giggle when he was truly stirred up—was far different from Uncle’s great belly laugh or soft, gravelly chuckle.

But he struggled to remember the exact sound of his voice—

“Li, young man,” the bearded purveyor in front of him said, snapping to get his attention.Zuko shook himself to listen. “I’m sorry but we are fresh out of duck from Ping’s farm.I know Mushi favors his fowl more than any other.If you come back in a few days on the twenty-first, we should have plenty.Unless of course, you should wish to purchase from another supplier.”

“No,” Zuko said, “I think we’ll wait, then.”

Uncle claimed he appreciated the simple things, like drinking in a tin cup but the man was an utter snob when it came to the quality of his duck and his tea however much he denied the label. 

Turning away, Zuko fished for the grocery list, his mind utterly blank now, and found it was not in the coin-pouch, the loaded shopping basket or in any other pocket on him.He let out a frustrated snarl, careless of the startled glances he received from a nearby mother and her two children.He barged into the crowd, visiting other merchants, and picking up what he could remember.

Uncle would be disappointed in no duck—he had a habit of preparing a generous dinner on their off-days and would probably complain that the twenty-first would be too long a wait. 

Zuko’s breath caught and he stopped dead in his tracks in the middle of the crowded by-way.Last week was the fifteenth—he had forgotten the date, it had merely passed over his head without any notice.His sense of time had blurred in Ba Sing Se.Life (or whatever his existence had become) was regulated by shifts of labor and off-days to waste.Dates were only important when paying the rent, the number of days having relevance only when trying to make their meager wages stretch week to week.

Iroh had marked his dead son’s birthday without a word, in silence and alone, unacknowledged by his nephew.Iroh had never missed Zuko’s birthday, even in that first bleak year of exile when he wished fervently the old man would skip the fuss.

Lu Ten always celebrated his baby cousin’s birthday with a gift and a toothy grin. 

Zuko abandoned the busy market street toward Uncle at the apartment, urgency in his steps.He’d been quieter lately, Zuko admitted now that he thought on it, but still buoyant enough to utter a proverb and cite a flighty haiku to the ladies in the teashop. 

Zuko’s feet took him past a few alleys and onto the familiar street where Pao’s tea shop was located—it was the most direct route back.This path home he and Uncle could walk in their sleep, he was convinced, etched in his brain.Where Zuko could only see the dusty streets, the tired faces, the towering walls trapping them in, Iroh was always the first to paint color into Zuko’s complaints and observations.Often, as they walked their same path to the worn teashop, Iroh would point out the proud oak on the street corner, providing shade to passers-by.Or the quaint flower-boxes that crowned the windows in the apartments above.The lovely (and elderly) female shopkeeper who always greeted Iroh and Zuko on their morning trek with a smile as she brushed her doorstep before opening for the day.

His uncle had a knack for finding light in the details of everyday, however small, and pulling it from hidden, dark corners. A knack Zuko sometimes envied, when he wasn’t irritated by it, and it was a trait in the old man that he depended on.

Iroh, himself, was planted comfortably on the couch when Zuko finally tore into the apartment.Uncle glanced up from his novel, blinking and taking in measure of his harried nephew.“Everything alright?”

“Yes—I mean no.I lost the list and I think I forgot half of what you needed.There is no duck and—”

Iroh laughed and rose from the couch, reaching for the basket Zuko gripped beneath an arm.“It’s fine, nephew.”

“No, it’s not, Uncle.I’m sorry—I forgot the date, didn’t I?I forgot Lu Ten’s birthday.”

“Don’t apologize, Zuko.That’s alright.”Iroh’s expression grew very still and his tone was much too gentle. 

“I found the portrait, Uncle, in your jacket.How did it even survive all this way?”

Uncle began unpacking the contents of the shopping basket and placing them in the pantry.“Sheer dumb luck, or perhapssomething else if you’re supersititous.”

Zuko raised an eyebrow.“What do you mean?”

“I had his portrait tucked away in my robes the night of the explosion.On a whim almost—after you declined going, I slipped his picture in my pocket, thinking I might stop at a shrine and offer a few prayers of safety for our absconded crew.”

And clearly prayers for Lu Ten, Zuko filled in silently.And clearly those prayers—if he had made them—had fallen on deaf ears, as he recalled the disasterous and horrifying seige of the north.Zuko could not help but scoff, “Much good that did.”

Iroh landed a solemn gaze on his nephew, holding it for a long moment before smiling softly.“Oh, I don’t know.Not all of my prayers went completely unheard.”

Zuko found a hand on his shoulder and an open affection in his uncle’s gaze he found more and more steadying.“Uncle, why don’t we go out for dinner—in Lu Ten’s honor?”

“That’s a fine idea, nephew.”The old man chuckled lightly.“Besides, you left half the ingredients for tonight’s meal back at the marketplace.”

Uncle ushered his nephew into the fine suit he had purchased for the date-gone-wrong with Jin, a memory that still left Zuko wincing in embarrasment and regret.Iroh had donned formal garb that Zuko had never seen before and the pair set out for a restaurant one of the “fine lady patrons” suggested, according to his uncle.

The walk there was made more pleasant by the night breeze, which stirred their hair and clothes gently.Fortunately, his uncle had allowed Zuko to retain his messy cut, eschewing the wretched pomade Iroh had slathered in his hair for Jin.He had never told the old man his ten minutes of work had been ruined in thirty seconds.

Evening drifted in, as the sun set beneath the horizon of the ever-present wall.Square-framed patches of light guided their steps, spilling onto the street from unshaded windows.Couples strolled arm in arm, eager to start the night while others headed home from their work shift, hard-pressed with tired features. 

Eventually, they reached the destination, a wooden building with curved, green tiled eaves that were lined with yellow and orange lanterns.The interior was equally as bright, its walls warmed by landscapes and tapestries, green lamps and fire-lit sconces.They were placed at a table in a shadowed corner. 

As the two shared dinner, Iroh was far more jovial than he had been in weeks, if Zuko were forced to admit.Uncle ordered far too many plates to share between them, including roast duck.The food, as verified by the fine lady patron, was delicious.The menu included a few “exotic” items from distant lands—amazingly, Zuko tasted curry and chilli-hot spices from the Fire Nation. 

“Many dishes from the colonies have been incorporated here into Ba Singe Se.This place specializes in them,” his uncle explained.

Mid-way through dinner, Iroh began speaking of Lu Ten, something he hadn’t done in years.How the boy had no patience for Pai Sho, though he strived to teach him but had the diligence to memorized loads of poems so he could flirt with court maidens badly.That he fancied himself a master story-teller at age six and at eight, he figured he was a painter.

“He attempted a portrait of your mother,” he said, grinning lightly.“Poor Ursa—she was forced to sit for hours and the final result was not the most accurate representation of the dear lady.”

The waiter interrupted then, to clear away empty plates and light the forgotten lamp in the corner.Its gleam poured over the table, brightening Iroh’s aged features.Uncle ordered dessert.

“Daifuku? I haven’t had that since—”

“—for many years,” Iroh finished for him.“It’s a rare treat and Lu Ten’s favorite.Let’s enjoy it.”

“He used to sneak some from Cook after dinner and we’d share them beneath the covers of his bed.It took Mom quite a while to figure out what we were up to.”

His own stories came then, how Lu Ten heard he had never ridden a komo-rhino and promptly dragged him to the stables.Mom had nearly said no—but allowed it.They often practiced kata in the mornings together and in the afternoon Lu Ten would help with his studies where he could.At Ember Island, he and Azula buried their cousin up to his neck in sand, teasing him that he would make good bait for hermit crabs.

“Your mother wrote me about that, you know,” Iroh interrupted but fell silent as the server delivered a plate with several pieces of daifuku. 

Zuko popped one into his mouth and could not repress a small smile. “These are delicious, Uncle.Thank you.”

The old man beamed at him.The small candle at the table—that at some point in the meal a server had lit—reflected a suspicious glint in Iroh’s eyes.“I’m glad.”Blinking, he shook his head and laughed lightly.“Thank you for forgetting half the groceries at the market and giving us a reason for a meal out.”

Zuko uttered a heartfelt groan.“I’ll go tomorrow after our shift if you don’t mention it again.”

“Done, then.Only maybe I should accompany you to make sure—”

“I’ll be fine!”

Their tab came shortly but Iroh held up a hand to his nephew and pulled out his own money.He shooed the boy’s protests off, mentioning some generous tips and paid up.As they left the restaurant, Zuko took in scope of the crowded street around them.A cluster of young men walked past, hurling insults and jokes at each other while sharing a bottle of saki.A couple stood beneath a street lamp, faces close. 

Hours had passed—more than Zuko had realized.Their walk home was quiet, a few words exchanged between them about tomorrow’s shift at the teashop.

As soon they entered their dark apartment, Iroh covertly lit the lamp near the door with a small flick of his finger.“I’ll put on the kettle.”

Zuko rolled his eyes but headed for the bedroom to shed his ithchy, formal collar for his more comfortable sleep clothes.When he emerged, Iroh sat at the low table in the common room, sipping his tea—it was calmomile—and beckoned Zuko to join him.A cup, filled to the brim and steaming, awaited him. 

They nursed their respective cups in relative silence before Iroh stretched his arms overhead, yawning with his usual exaggeration.“Well, I’m off to bed but you finish that tea!”Grabbing his empty cup and the teapot, Iroh put these on the counter near the stove, whose embers he had extinguished.As he walked back to their shared bedroom, he turned briefly with a hand on the shoji.“Thank you, Zuko, for tonight.And for remembering.”

Zuko found his throat painfully tight as he met his uncle’s gentle gaze.He nodded, trying to speak past the stone that seemed lodged in his mouth.“You’re welcome, Uncle.I—it was good to speak of him.”

“Yes, it was.Good night, nephew.Don’t stay up too late now.”

The old man slid the shoji closed and Zuko sat still a moment, finishing his tea and closing his eyes to even his breath.The shutters were closed, he knew.In his mind’s eye, he imagined the flame of the lamp near the door snycing in time with his inhale and exhales.In bedroom, he heard the rustling of linens as Iroh laid out his futon.After a few minutes, he heard the old man give a soft sigh. 

Eventually, Zuko breathed away the the dim flame in the lamp and headed for the bedroom.Iroh had left a candle burning in the corner and had unrolled his nephew’s futon for the night. 

He dreamt then of running through the grassy hills at Ember Island with Azula and Lu Ten.His mother’s voice carried on the wind as she urged them to be careful while his uncle laughed, telling them to enjoy the day.They hurried to the beach during low tide to collect sea shells and poke at the horseshoe crabs. 

When he woke suddenly, before dawn, he could heard the rush of the ocean in his ears.Outside their apartment he listened as the city readied itself for the day: the sweep of a brush, the rattle of wagon wheels in the street and the scent of hearths being lit. 

As the vestiges of his dream left him, he could not help but think how the Fire Nation seemed more and more like a faraway country,an idyll, out of reach. 

Beside him, Iroh snored loudly, muttered and shifted on his side.Zuko shoved his thoughts away, pushing aside his blanket and quietly padding into the common room.Grasping two empty buckets, he headed downstairs to the courtyard and stood in queue for the well.Fortunately, not many were up and he soon had filled his buckets, carrying them upstairs.Iroh was up, attempting to scratch up a decent breakfast before work.

Hours later at the tea shop, as he mindlessly scrubbed dishes to ready for closing, Zuko tried to recall his dream.The details of it escaped his memory except for his uncle’s laughter on the breeze. 

Behind him through the window separating kitchen and dining area,his uncle’s voice called out.“I’ve tidied out front, nephew.Are you almost ready to go home?”

“Yes, let’s go in a few minutes.”

More and more often when Zuko referred to home, he thought less of the distant Fire Nation but instead of the two-room apartment he shared with Iroh, where a full teapot was always within reach and the sound of his uncle’s mirth often filled each quiet corner.


End file.
